Yorkshire Amateur joint manager Craig Ogilvie is impressed with the standard of the Toolstation NCEL Premier Division this season.
The Ammers kick off the league campaign with a trip to AFC Mansfield today and Ogilvie expects a really competitive Division.
“I honestly think it is probably the strongest Northern Counties Premier for a good few years,” Ogilvie told Non League Yorkshire.
“A lot of clubs have signed well and I think you can look at any three from eight or nine teams who are going to be really pushing for it.
“You have your favourites which many people will assume will be Liversedge and the teams who were up there last season like ourselves, Staveley, Penistone, Brid.
“If you look at teams who were near the bottom end last year like Athersley. Shane (Kelsey) will have those guys well-organised and Les (Nelson) at Goole has brought in some talented lads as well.
“The whole league is stronger and there is going to be no easy games. There’ll be no givens. You’ll see some shock results and I don’t think people will be thinking ‘this should be an easy game today’.”
Had history not taken a turbulent route, the Ammers would have been in the Northern Premier League. They were on course to win promotion and if points-per-game ratios been applied, they would have still been elevated to higher climbs.
However, the season was expunged. The decision did anger many, but the Ammers have moved on and Ogilvie’s only has one hangover from last season.
“When it first got announced that the season was finishing there was a slight optimism they were going points-per-game,” he said.
“We thought that was the route they were going to go. However, it got forgotten about from our point of view. We said right quickly ‘ok, let’s crack on’.
“From a personal point of view I don’t think we played particularly well last year. There was a handful of games where I can say we were really good and played to our potential.
“Maltby away, that was 6-1 to us and that was as devastating as we were last season. We huffed and puffed in games and came out winners 2-1 or 3-1 in games.
“But I’m quite looking forward to putting a few wrongs right this year. We didn’t play to our full potential last year and In our eyes we have a little bit to prove and hopefully we can do that.”
Yorkshire Amateur’s First Five Fixtures
September 19th – AFC Mansfield (A)
September 23rd – Bottesford Town (A)
September 26th – Silsden (H)
September 29th – Bridlington Town (A)
October 3rd – Athersley Rec (H)
If you have enjoyed reading Non League Yorkshire over the past few months, please consider making a donation to the not-for-profit organisation NLY Community Sport which provides sport for children and adults with disabilities and learning difficulties. CLICK HERE to visit the JustGiving page. There is a video at the bottom of the page showing our work.
NLY Community Sport, run by James Grayson and Connor Rollinson, has always had combatting social isolation at the top of our objectives when running our Disability Football teams. As we slowly return to ‘action’, our work will play an important role in reintroducing our players, who have disabilities and learning difficulties, back into society.
We have six teams, a mixture of Junior and Adult teams – Nostell MW DFC, Pontefract Pirates, Selby Disability Football Club and the South Yorkshire Superheroes (Barnsley) – across Yorkshire.
We have enjoyed great success over the past three years. Several of our players have represented Mencap GB in Geneva, including Billy Hobson from Selby and Greg Smith, whose story is quite inspiring.
Like most organisations, we have been affected financially by the Coronavirus and because of the cancelled Lucille Rollinson Memorial Tournament, we are down on projected income for the year and we have incurred losses in the last few months.
We have not been hit as badly as other organisations, but we do need raise £2000 to put us back at the level we were at in mid-March and enable us to make a difference once again to our players’ lives in the future, without having financial worries. Several of our players are suffering from effects of the lockdown and we are determined to be in the strongest position possible to provide services for them.
Any amount raised above £2000 will be put towards new projects (when the world returns to normal) designed to further benefit people with disabilities and learning difficulties. You can learn more about the organisation HERE and on our Facebook page.
Watch the video below to see highlights from our three years as an organisation. The video was produced for our players at the end of March to remind them of good memories from the last three years.